2020 Emerge Literary Journal Contributors
Hanna Abi Akl writes contemporary poetry and prose. His writing style flows as an endless stream of consciousness, rarely if ever solidifying in rigid form. Some bits of his work have already materialized in novels and poetry books, while others remain hidden in the dark.
Anthony Aguero is a queer writer in Los Angeles, CA. His work has appeared, or will appear, in the Bangalore Review, 2River View, The Acentos Review, The Temz Review, Rhino Poetry, and Cathexis Northwest Press.
Kanika Ahuja believes in the inexplicable joy of sunshines and smiles, hoarding verses on sticky notes in mason jars to be set free like paper boats on rainy days. Her work appears, or is forthcoming, at The Medley, Sidereal Magazine, and Airplane Poetry Movement’s Ultimate Poetry Anthology. She is based in New Delhi, India, and can be found on Twitter @kanika0326.
Mileva Anastasiadou is a neurologist, from Athens, Greece. A Pushcart, Best of the Net and Best Small Fictions nominated writer, her work can be found in many journals, such as Gone Lawn, Litro, Jellyfish Review, Queen Mob’s Tea House, Moon Park Review, Okay Donkey, Open Pen and others.
Jules Archer is the author of the chapbook, All the Ghosts We’ve Always Had (Thirty West Publishing, 2018) and the short story collection, Little Feasts (Thirty West Publishing, 2020). Her writing has appeared in various journals, including SmokeLong Quarterly, PANK, Okay Donkey, New World Writing, Maudlin House, and elsewhere. Her story “From the Slumbarave Hotel on Broadway” appeared in Best Microfiction 2020.
Ayesha Asad is a freshman at the University of Texas at Dallas majoring in Literature and Biology. Currently, her writing has been published or is forthcoming in Santa Clara Review, Blue Marble Review, Eunoia Review, Skipping Stones Magazine, and TeenInk and has been recognized by the Creative Writing Ink December 2019 contest.
Nicola Ashbrook is an emerging writer from the north-west of England where she lives with a menagerie of children, a husband, cats and a dog. She loves flash and has had a handful of pieces published. She is supposed to be re-drafting her debut novel, but the call of flash is strong. She can be found tweeting @NicolaAWrites
Ashley Bao is a Chinese-Canadian-American high school junior. She spends her time writing and dreaming, mostly about cats. Her poetry and short fiction has been published/is forthcoming in Liminality, Strange Horizons, and Cast of Wonders.
Caleb Berg is a undergraduate at the University of California Santa Cruz where he majors in literature with a focus on creative writing. He really wishes his landlords allowed cats.
Katie Berger holds an MFA in creative writing from the University of Alabama and lives in Nebraska. She is the author of Time Travel: Theory and Practice, and Swans, both from Dancing Girl Press, as well as a number of poems, stories, and essays that have appeared or are forthcoming in Cherry Tree, Thimble, The Maynard, and others. She can be found at http://www.katie-berger.com
Laura Besley writes short fiction, which given the current situation and amount of children at home is useful. Her latest hobby is home-schooling, something she’s not sure she’ll ever master. Her fiction has appeared online, as well as in print and in various anthologies. Her flash fiction collection, The Almost Mothers, was published in March 2020. She tweets @laurabesley
Elizabeth Bluth is a writer of fiction, poetry, and plays. Her work has appeared or is upcoming in LIT Magazine, Emerge Literary Journal, American Writer’s Review, Kissing Dynamite Poetry, and others. She has a BA in Theatre and Creative Writing and an MFA in Fiction from The New School in NYC.
Melissa Boles is a writer, storyteller, and impatient optimist from the Pacific Northwest who recently relocated to Tennessee. Her writing focuses on art, mental health, love, and the human connection. Melissa has been published in The Daily Drunk, Emerge Literary Journal, Stone of Madness Press, and at Fanfare and Sexology on Medium. Her debut chapbook, We Love in Small Places, will be released via ELJ Editions in May 2021. You can find her at http://MelissaBoles.org or at @melloftheball.
Jamy Bond‘s writing has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and appeared in Furious Gravity, Wigleaf, XRAY, The Rumpus, The Sun and on NPR’s The Sound of Writing. She earned an MFA from George Mason University where she co-founded the literary journal So To Speak.
Olivia Braley is a mostly-poetry writer from Annapolis, MD, where she is pursuing her Masters of Liberal Arts at St. John’s College. She is a cofounder and Editor in Chief at Stone of Madness Press and a Reader for Longleaf Review. Her work has appeared in Longleaf Review, perhappened mag, The Daily Drunk, Versification and other places on the web. Keep up with her work on Twitter @OliviaBraley.
Faye Brinsmead‘s flash fiction appears in X-R-A-Y Literary Magazine, MoonPark Review, New Flash Fiction Review, Spelk, Reflex Fiction, Ellipsis Zine, FlashFlood 2020, (mac)ro(mic), and others. Among my molecules, her poetry e-chapbook, is published by proletaria. She lives in Australia and tweets @ContesdeFaye.
Linda Brooks completed BA Hons at Southern Cross University (SCU) in 2019. Several of her short stories have been published in anthologies: Coastlines 5, 6 & 7 (SCU), Wood, Bricks & Stone (Catchfire Press), Grieve (Hunter Writer’s Centre) and Longing for Solitude (Stringybark Press). She’s won creative writing awards: first prize for The Legacy University Level Creative Writing Award; first prize in the Gabe Reynaud Creative Writing Award and the Mater Misericordiae Grieve Writing Award. Her poem ‘Leaves’ was published in Seeking the Sun, 2012 anthology by Central Coast Poets Inc. She’s had two short pieces published in The Northerly – Northern Rivers Writers Magazine, ‘Waiting’ and ‘Billy and Me’.
Award-winning author and Pushcart Prize nominee, California poet Bri Bruce has been deemed the “heiress of Mary Oliver.” With a bachelor’s degree in literature and creative writing from the University of California at Santa Cruz, her work has appeared in dozens of anthologies, magazines, and literary publications, including The Sun Magazine, Northwind Magazine, The Soundings Review, and The Monterey Poetry Review, among others.
Sophia Bruce is from New Haven, Connecticut, and is a rising sophomore at Smith College. She has previously been published in Jet Fuel Review, Long River Review, and others.
Stuart Buck is a visual artist and award-winning poet living in North Wales. His art has been featured in several journals, as well as gracing the covers of several books. His third poetry collection, Portrait of a Man on Fire, is forthcoming from Rhythm & Bones Press in November 2020. When he is not writing or reading poetry he likes to cook, juggle, and listen to music. He suffers terribly from tsundoku—the art of buying copious amounts of books that he will never read.
Clara Burghelea is a Romanian-born poet with an MFA in Poetry from Adelphi University. Recipient of the Robert Muroff Poetry Award, her poems and translations appeared in Ambit, HeadStuff, Waxwing, The Cortland Review and elsewhere. Her collection The Flavor of The Other is scheduled for publication in 2020 with Dos Madres Press. She is the current Poetry Editor of The Blue Nib.
C. A. Campbell lives in Kansas City, MO with her husband and three ridiculously needy dogs. When she is not writing, she works as a pediatric nurse. She enjoys writing intense, emotional stories that hit hard on ethical issues, promote diversity and keep readers thinking long after the last page.
Dan A. Cardoza’s fiction, nonfiction, and poetry have met international acceptance. Most recently his work has been featured in Cabinet of Heed, Cleaver, Entropy, Gravel, Montana Mouthful, New Flash Fiction Review and Spelk. Twitter Handle: @Cardozabig
Elou Carroll is a graphic designer and freelance photographer who writes. She has a Bachelor’s in Creative Writing with English Literature from the University of Chester and a Master’s in Publishing from Oxford Brookes. Her work appears or is forthcoming in Aloe and perhappened mag. She tweets from @keychild.
Sara Siddiqui Chansarkar is an Indian American. She was born in a middle-class family in India and will forever be indebted to her parents for educating her beyond their means. She is a Pushcart and Best of the Net nominee. She blogs at Puny Fingers and can be reached at twitter @PunyFingers.
Christopher W. Clark (@chriswillclark) reads, writes, and teaches things. Their poems have featured in various publications including The Cadaverine and Ink, Sweat, & Tears. They have collaborated with The Royal Philharmonic Society and photographer Mick Frank among others. They are currently working on a chapbook and full-length novel dealing with the intersections of class and queerness.
Ken Coseto is a content marketer based in the Philippines. His work has appeared in Rappler and Scout Magazine. He lives vicariously through characters on page and on screen.
c. cimmone is and author, editor and comic from Texas. She is alive and well on Twitter at @diefunnier
Drew Coles is the world’s worst farm kid. His work has appeared in the Midwestern Gothic and has been supported by Martha’s Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing and the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference.
Megan Colgan received an English degree from the University of New Hampshire and then promptly did nothing with it after graduation. She held a string of office jobs until she had her first kid, a boy, in 2007. Her second kid, a girl, was born in 2012. She is now a stay-at-home mother who is temporarily assisting them in all of their remote learning endeavors. She loves the sound of rain hitting tree branches in the woods and eating lobster rolls in any seaside town in Maine. She currently lives in New Hampshire.
SM Colgan (she/her) is a bi writer somewhere in Ireland. Her work focuses on emotion, history, sexuality, and relationships, romantic and otherwise. She writes to understand people who are and have been, and to ease the yearning in her heart. Twitter: @burnpyregorse.
Madeleine Corley is a writer by internal monologue. She most identifies with Bow in She-Ra and The Princesses of Power. Currently, she serves as Poetry Editor at Barren Magazine. You can find her @madelinksi on Twitter and at her website wrotemadeleine.com.
Paul Edward Costa is a writer, spoken word artist, teacher, and the 2019-2021 Poet Laureate for the City of Mississauga. He has featured at many poetry reading series in the Greater Toronto Area and has published over 60 poems and stories in literary journals such as Bewildering Stories, Lucent Dreaming Magazine, Former People Journal, POST-, and the Gyroscope Review. His first full length book of poetry The Long Train of Chaos was published by Kung Fu Treachery Press. He curates/hosts several poetry series and has won the Mississauga Arts Council’s 2019 MARTY Award for Emerging Literary Arts.
Travis Cravey lives in Southeastern Pennsylvania. He’s had stories published a few places. He’ll show you if you want.
Shome Dasgupta is the author of i am here And You Are Gone (Winner Of The 2010 OW Press Fiction Chapbook Contest), The Seagull And The Urn (HarperCollins India, 2013), Anklet And Other Stories (Golden Antelope Press, 2017), Pretend I Am Someone You Like (University of West Alabama’s Livingston Press, 2018), and Mute (Tolsun Books, 2018). He lives in Lafayette, LA, and he can be found at www.shomedome.com and @laughingyeti.
Tommy Dean lives in Indiana with his wife and two children. He is the author of a flash fiction chapbook entitled Special Like the People on TV from Redbird Chapbooks. He is the Editor at Fractured Lit. He has been previously published in the BULL Magazine, The MacGuffin, The Lascaux Review, New World Writing, Pithead Chapel, and New Flash Fiction Review. His story “You’ve Stopped” was chosen by Dan Chaon to be included in Best Microfiction 2019. Find him @TommyDeanWriter on Twitter.
Justin Deming lives and teaches in the Hudson Valley region of New York. His fiction has appeared in Fifty-Word Stories, Flash Fiction Magazine, Spelk, and elsewhere. He can be found on Twitter @j_deming_.
Tyler Dempsey‘s work most recently appears, or is forthcoming, in Back Patio Press, Lammergeier Magazine, 3 moon publishing, Bending Genres, and Heavy Feather Review. Find him on Twitter @tylercdempsey.
Thad DeVassie is the author of This Side of Utopia (forthcoming; Cervena Barva Press). His work has appeared in numerous journals including New York Quarterly, Poetry East, West Branch, NANO Fiction, Juked, Collateral, Unbroken, PANK, and Lunate. He is a lifelong Ohioan who writes from the outskirts of Columbus.
Aleah Dye (she/her) primarily writes poetry, tending towards topics of morbidity, love, social justice, and philosophy. She is dreadfully afraid of imperfection and spiders, in no particular order. She has a one-eyed cat named Ivy and a one-track-minded (food!) cat named Rosebud. Aleah hopes to make hearts grow three sizes with her words.
Sara Dobbie is a Canadian fiction writer from Southern Ontario. Her work has appeared in Mooky Chick, Trampset, Spelk, The Cabinet of Heed, Bandit Fiction, Ellipsis Zine, and elsewhere. Look for stories forthcoming from Knights Library Magazine and Change Seven Magazine, and follow her on Twitter @sbdobbie.
Nicole S. Entin is a teenage poet, writer, playwright, and essayist living in Toronto. Her poetry has been featured numerous times in anthologies published by the Poetry Institute of Canada, and won second prize in the youth category of the Open Ages National Poetry Contest. Her full-length play, Locked in a Room, was produced for the National Theatre School Festival, winning an Award of Merit for playwriting. Her latest play, In the Chocolate Boxes, had a staged reading in October 2019 at Alumnae Theatre’s Next Stage Readings series. She is also a youth member of the Playwrights’ Guild of Canada. She will soon be moving on to the next chapter of her life, as she pursues studies in English and Comparative Literature at the University of St. Andrews, UK.
Elizabeth Estochen is a queer, nonbinary writer in Denver, Colorado. Her chapbook, For Love, and for Cruelty was published by WordTech Editions in January, 2020. Follow her on Twitter @estochen or her website, http://estocheneditorial.com.
Deirdre Fagan is a widow, wife, mother of two, and associate professor and coordinator of creative writing at Ferris State University. Fagan is the author of a chapbook of poetry, Have Love, Finishing Line Press (2019) and a collection of short stories, The Grief Eater, Adelaide Books (forthcoming, 2020). Meet her at deirdrefagan.com
Elspeth Findlay is a poet and author of short stories and essays. Dwelling in the Northern Rivers of NSW, Australia, they have a deep interest in understanding eco-cultures and adaptation, above and below ground. Their poetry is published in the Northerly and is touring with the Bimblebox 153 Birds. They study Arts, majoring in Creative Writing.
Lynn Finger’s poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in the Ekphrastic Review, MineralLitMag, Unlost, Night Music Journal and Drunk Monkeys. Lynn is one of the founding editors of the forthcoming journal Harpy Hybrid Review, and also works with a group that mentors writers in prison.
Lindsay Bennett Ford is from the North East of England. By day she works in the charity sector and writes in her free time. Her work has recently been published on Another North, Detritus and the Cabinet of Heed. She tweets at @linzdigs
Sarah Freligh is the author of Sad Math, winner of the 2014 Moon City Press Poetry Prize and the 2015 Whirling Prize from the University of Indianapolis; A Brief Natural History of an American Girl (Accents Publishing, 2012), and Sort of Gone (Turning Point Books, 2008). Recent work has appeared in the Cincinnati Review, SmokeLong Quarterly, diode, wigleaf and in the anthologies New Micro: Exceptionally Short Fiction (Norton 2018) and Best Microfiction 2019 and 2020 Among her awards are a 2009 poetry fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts and a grant from the Constance Saltonstall Foundation in 2006.
Jessica Frelow is an emerging writer. Her work has appeared in Versification, JHHF Review and The New York Times Metropolitan Diary. Find her on twitter @thefrelow.
Susan Fuchtman writes poetry, memoir, and short stories. Her recent and forthcoming work can be found in Plume, Flights, Punchnel’s, and Stonecrop Review. She currently resides in Chicago, Illinois.
Steven Genise is a writer based in Seattle. His work has appeared in Gone Lawn, Crack the Spine, After the Pause, and others, and he is the fiction editor of Cascadia Magazine. Sarah Genise is a visual artist based in a Phoenix, whose work has appeared in various shows around Arizona.
Rebecca Gethin has written 5 poetry publications and has been a Hawthornden Fellow and a Poetry School tutor. Messages was a winner in the first Coast to Coast to Coast pamphlet competition. Vanishings from Palewell Press and Fathom from Marble are forthcoming in 2020.
Marissa Glover teaches and writes in Florida, where she is co-editor of Orange Blossom Review and a senior editor at The Lascaux Review. Marissa’s work appears in Rust + Moth, SWWIM Every Day, Okay Donkey, and Whale Road Review, among other journals. Her debut poetry collection, LET GO OF THE HANDS YOU HOLD, is forthcoming from Mercer University Press in 2021. Follow Marissa on Twitter @_MarissaGlover_.
Ariel M. Goldenthal received her MFA from George Mason University where she is now an Assistant Professor of English. Her work has appeared in or is forthcoming from Fiction Southeast, MoonPark Review, and Grace & Gravity Vol. VIII.
Edith-Marie Green is a sophomore in college from Mississippi. Recently, she spent the summer doing a gardening internship in the mountains of Tennessee. When she’s not writing, reading, or thinking about either of those things, she enjoys baking bread, knitting, and playing 80s music at top volume.
Farley Egan Green lives and writes in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. She graduated from Scripps College and is retired from a writing/communications career. She writes for the pleasure of working with words and sounds, to tell stories and, in some cases, to make sense of difficult experiences. Her poems have appeared in the Trestle Creek Review, Smoky Blue Literary and Arts Magazine, and elsewhere.
Shannon Frost Greenstein resides in Philadelphia with her children, soulmate, and stubborn cats. She is the author of More., a poetry collection from Wild Pressed Books. Shannon is a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee, a Contributing Editor for Barren Magazine, and a former Ph.D. candidate in Continental Philosophy. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, Pithead Chapel, X-R-A-Y Lit Mag, Cabinet of Heed, Ellipsis Zine, STORGY Mag, Lunate Fiction, Door Is a Jar, and elsewhere. Follow Shannon at shannonfrostgreenstein.com or on Twitter at @ShannonFrostGre. She comes up when you Google her.
Anna Gates Ha is a writer and part-time English instructor in Northern California. She earned her MFA in fiction at Saint Mary’s College of California, and her writing, nominated for the Pushcart Prize, has appeared in Harpur Palate, The Citron Review, Milk Candy Review, and Watershed Review, among others. You can find her at www.annagatesha.com and, sometimes, on Twitter @annagatesha.
Charlotte Hamrick’s poetry, prose, and photography has been published in numerous online and print journals, most recently including MORIA, The Citron Review, and Flash Frontier. She lives in New Orleans with her husband and a menagerie of rescued pets. You can find her online at Twitter @CharlotteHam504 and on her website Zouxzoux.wordpress.com
River Elizabeth Hall is a poet, short fiction writer and naturalist. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Cirque, Into the Void, Sunspot Lit, and Tinderbox Poetry Journal among others. She was a semi-finalist in the 2019 Brett Elizabeth Jenkins Poetry Award.
Candace Hartsuyker is a third-year fiction student at McNeese State University and reads for PANK. She has been published in Heavy Feather Review, Maudlin House and elsewhere.
Bethan Hay lives an island life in Orkney. She has been published by Perhappened, National Flash Fiction Day (UK), and is due in Versification. She was selected to be part of MumWrite. You can find her on Twitter @bethanhay_
Ceinwen E Cariad Haydon lives near Newcastle upon Tyne and writes short stories and poetry. Her first chapbook was published in 2019: Cerddi Bach [Little Poems] by Hedgehog Press. Her first pamphlet is due to be published in 2020. She is a Pushcart and Forwards Prize nominee. She believes everyone’s voice counts.
Lindsey Heatherly is an emerging writer, born and raised in Upstate South Carolina. She has work forthcoming in The Scriblerus Arts Journal and Rejection Letters. She works as a pharmacy technician in an inpatient psychiatric hospital and spends her time at home raising a strong, confident daughter.
Patrick Thomas Henry is the Associate Editor for Fiction and Poetry at Modern Language Studies. His fiction and essays have recently appeared in publications including The Massachusetts Review, CHEAP POP, Clarion, and Passages North, and his work has also been selected for inclusion in Best Microfiction 2020. He is an instructor and Coordinator of Creative Writing in the English Department at the University of North Dakota. You can find him online at patrickthomashenry.com or on Twitter @Patrick_T_Henry.
Lauren Simone Holley is a writer and undergraduate student studying English with a creative writing concentration at Howard University in Washington, DC. At Howard, she serves as the editor of the university’s literary magazine Sterling Notes. Her work centers the fear, ostracism, and inner worlds of women and marginalized people.
Donovan Irven is a philosopher, essayist, and writer of fiction. He currently serves as the Director of Philosophical Praxis for Filo Sofi Arts, a New York based art gallery and progressive educational space. He holds a PhD in philosophy and literature from Purdue University. His work has previously appeared in Erraticus and Queen Mob’s Tea House.
Sabrina Ito lives in Honolulu, HI with her husband and son, where she works as a Middle School Languages teacher. Her poems have appeared in Bamboo Ridge, Clarion Magazine, Slipstream Press, Coachella Review, West Trade Review and BlazeVox, among others. Sabrina is also the author of poetry chapbooks, The Witches of Lila Springs (Plan B Press, 2018) and Messages from Salt Water (Finishing Line Press, 2019). For more information about Sabrina’s work, visit: https://sabrinaitopoetry.com or follow her on Twitter at: @ito_sab.
Savannah Jensen is a poet and freelance writer from Sonoma County, California. She has a BA in English from UCLA and has work published in Pink Plastic House literary journal. When she’s not writing, she enjoys baking, making music, and photographing the people and places she loves.
Meagan Johanson is a writer from Oregon, where she lives with her family and one very good cat. She enjoys playing the piano, watching things grow, and sticking the landing on a new recipe. She is always seeking a new obsession, and has lived many exciting lives, at least in her imagination. You can find her on Twitter: @MeaganJohanson.
Alyssa Jordan is a writer living in the United States. She pens literary horoscopes for F(r)iction Series. Her stories can be found or are forthcoming in The Sunlight Press, X–R-A-Y Literary Magazine, South Broadway Ghost Society, Blind Corner Literary Magazine, and more. You can find her on Twitter @ajordan901 and Instagram @ajordanwriter.
Rox Kashun is a queer poet. They are based in the South of England. They explore themes of awkward love, living in the margins and break-ups of all kinds in their writing.
Tyrel Kessinger is a stay-at-home dad of two wild animals. His work can be found at Gargoyle, Triggerfish Critical Review, Straylight, and forthcoming from Washington Square Review, Red Rock Review, Atticus Review, and Typehouse. He also serves time as Poetry Editor for Great Lakes Review.
Olivia Kingery grows plants and words in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. She is an MFA candidate at Northern Michigan University, where she reads for Passages North. When not writing, she is in the woods with her Chihuahua or swimming while he watches.
Alan Kissane is a teacher of English in the East Midlands, UK. He has a doctorate in History and has published books and articles on the Middle Ages. His poem, ‘The Working Men’s Club’, is due to be published in Allegro this September.
Veronica Klash loves living in Las Vegas and writing in her living room. Her work has appeared in such publications as Desert Companion, Cheap Pop, Ellipsis Zine, and X-Ray Lit. You can find more about Veronica on Twitter @VeronicaKlash.
Lily Klinek is a student at UC Berkeley and is current Managing Editor of Berkeley Poetry Review. Her writing explores the ways we carry emotion, inhabit our own bodies in illness and health, and find ourselves pulled towards or away from expression. She studies environmental science but makes room in her heart for poetry and language, always.
Kara Knickerbocker is the author of The Shedding Before the Swell (2018) and Next to Everything that is Breakable (2017). She currently lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania where she works at Carnegie Mellon University, writes with the Madwomen in the Attic at Carlow University, and co-curates the MadFridays Reading Series. Find her online at www.karaknickerbocker.com.
Kristin Kozlowski lives and works in the Midwest US. Some of her work is available online at Lost Balloon, Longleaf Review, Pidgeonholes, Cease Cows, and Nightingale and Sparrow, among others. In 2019, she was awarded Editor’s Choice from Arkana for her CNF piece, A POCKET OF AIR. She was also named a finalist in Forge Literary Magazine’s Forge Flash Competition 2019 for her CNF piece, RELATIONSTASIS. If you tweet: @kriskozlowski.
Rich Larson was born in Galmi, Niger, has lived in Canada, USA, and Spain, and is now based in Prague, Czech Republic. He is the author of the novel Annex and the collection Tomorrow Factory. His work has been translated into Polish, Czech, Bulgarian, Portuguese, French, Italian, Vietnamese, Chinese and Japanese.
Brett Lewis is a lifelong lover and more recent writer of fiction. He is currently beginning the final year of a PhD in English, focusing on Literary and Cultural Studies. He is a huge fan of Southern Gothic literature and Revisionist Westerns, the latter of which he will be writing his PhD dissertation on. He currently teaches composition courses at the University of Memphis and hopes to move into literature courses in the near future.
Roger Li is a high school student from the Chicagoland area. His works have been accepted into, Journal & Topics, Versification, JHHF Review, and Eskimo Pie Review, among others. He has a husky named Wilson from Texas.
Tucker Lieberman is the author of three nonfiction books: Ten Past Noon, Painting Dragons, and Bad Fire. His short fiction is in anthologies published by Owl Canyon, Mad Scientist, STORGY, and Microcosm. He has moved many times and now lives in Bogotá, Colombia. www.tuckerlieberman.com
Marc Littman is a short story writer, novelist and emerging playwright. His stories have been published in online magazines and anthologies from Fictive Dream to The Saturday Evening Post. His two novels are Eddie and Me on the Scrap Heap about a heroic boy with autism and The Spirit Sherpa, a mystery story with a reincarnation twist
Meagan Lucas is the author of the award-winning novel: Songbirds and Stray Dogs (Main Street Rag, 2019). Her short work has appeared in The New Southern Fugitives, Still: The Journal, and MonkeyBicycle among others. She is Pushcart nominated and won the 2017 Scythe Prize for Fiction. She is an English and Creative Writing Instructor at Asheville-Buncombe Community Technical College.
MA|DE (est. 2018) is a collaborative writing partnership comprised of interdisciplinary artist Mark Laliberte and writer Jade Wallace. Their poetry has appeared in Vallum Magazine, Poetry is Dead, PRISM International, Trinity Review, Vallum, and elsewhere. MA|DE’s debut chapbook, Test Centre, was released by ZED Press in 2019 and they are currently working on their first full-length collection.
D.B. MacInnes lives on his croft on the Isle of Skye, where he plant trees, plays the uilleann pipes and writes. He is inspired by writers such as William Trevor, Alice Munro and Claire Keegan. His short stories have been published in Northwords Now, Product and Gutter magazines, among others, and he was long-listed for the Fish Short Story prize in 2019. He’s currently working on the second draft of a post-war murder mystery and looking for an agent!
Elizabeth Mathes is a counselor who specializes in autism. She is married to a music educator and composer. They have a 29-year-old adult son with low-functioning autism who lives with them. She is often inspired to write on daily walks with her son amid the North Idaho alpine and glacial beauty.
Kylie Martin received a BA in Literature from Ohio Northern University just a couple months ago, so she is still figuring this whole “poetry” thing out. She lives, works, and studies in Findlay, Ohio. Be nice to her on Twitter: @abstrusermusing
Julianna May is a poet based in Northeastern Pennsylvania, a graduate of Wilkes University’s M.A. in Creative Writing, and a high school English teacher. She has been published in Nightingale and Sparrow Magazine, Crepe & Penn, and Teen Belle Magazine. Find her on twitter: @JuliannaMay1216
DS Maolalai has been nominated four times for Best of the Net and three times for the Pushcart Prize. His poetry has been released in two collections, Love is Breaking Plates in the Garden (Encircle Press, 2016) and Sad Havoc Among the Birds (Turas Press, 2019)
Sage Marshall is an emerging poet from Telluride, CO. He has an undergraduate degree from Wesleyan University and is currently working on a lyric coming-of-age memoir called The Barbs. His poetry has been featured in Reverberations Mag and AOM.
Linda McMullen is a wife, mother, diplomat, and homesick Wisconsinite. Her short stories have appeared or are forthcoming in over thirty literary magazines, including, most recently, Arachne Press, Luna Station Quarterly, Ripples in Space, Write Ahead/The Future Looms Magazine, Drunk Monkeys, Turnpike, and Storgy.
Amanda McLeod is an author and artist from Australia. Her work can be found in many places both in print and online, and she is the Managing Editor of Animal Heart Press. She’s always looking for silence and coffee. Connect on Twitter @AmandaMWrites or via amandamcleodwrites.com
Sarah McPherson is a writer of short fiction and poetry from Sheffield in the UK. Her writing has appeared or is forthcoming in The Cabinet of Heed, Riggwelter, STORGY, and Corvid Queen, among others, and she has been long/short-listed in competitions including Writers’ HQ Flash Quarterly and Reflex Fiction. She tweets as @summer_moth and blogs sporadically at https://theleadedwindow.blogspot.com/.
Steve Merino (he/him) is a poet from Saint Paul, MN. His work can be found in Ghost City Review, Mineral Lit Mag, and elsewhere. A full list can be found on his linktree (https://linktr.ee/steve_merino). Follow him on twitter @steve_merino
Bruce Meyer is author or editor of 64 books of poetry, short fiction, flash fiction, non-fiction, and literary journalism. He was winner of the 2019 Anton Chekhov Prize for Fiction. His most recent book of short stories, A Feast of Brief Hopes (Guernica Editions) appeared in 2018. In 2020, Guernica Editions will publish a collection of his flash fiction, Down in the Ground. He lives in Barrie, Ontario.
Daniel Edward Moore lives in Washington on Whidbey Island. His poems are forthcoming in Plainsongs, The Cape Rock, Artifact Nouveau, Gyroscope Review, Magnolia Review and Kestrel Literary Journal. His book, Waxing The Dents was a finalist for the Brick Road Poetry Prize and will be released February 2020. danieledwardmoore.com.
Amy-Jean Muller is an artist, writer and poet from South Africa who lives and works in London. Both her art and writing explore culture, memory, mental health, identity, and sexuality. She has exhibited her art in South Africa and London. Her writing can be found in various publications and is a regular contributor for Versification and The Daily Drunk. She also writes transgressive fiction and is currently completing her first novel.
Zach Murphy is a Hawaii-born writer with a background in cinema. His stories have appeared in Peculiars Magazine, Ellipsis Zine, Emerge Literary Journal, The Bitchin’ Kitsch, Ghost City Review, Lotus-eater, WINK, and Fat Cat Magazine. He lives with his wonderful wife Kelly in St. Paul, Minnesota.
Jacob Nantz received an MA in Poetry from Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Evansville Review, Sinking City, Gigantic Sequins, and elsewhere. Born and raised in the Chicago area, he currently lives and writes near Washington DC.
Lucy Narva is a budding poet from Boston, Massachusetts. She likes unsweetened iced coffee, the smell of lilac flowers, and people who text with proper grammar. She is currently studying English at Barnard College of Columbia University, trying to balance required writing with desired writing, and, as Tim Kreider expertly wrote, grappling with “the mortifying ordeal of being known.”
Paul Negri has twice won the gold medal for fiction in the William Faulkner-William Wisdom Writing Competition. His stories have appeared in The Penn Review, Jellyfish Review, Flash Fiction Magazine, Vestal Review, and more than 50 other publications. He lives and writes in Clifton, New Jersey.
Nymphish is a contemporary poet from Phoenix, AZ. She received her first publication from Creative Communications when she was sixteen, and has since completed her debut poetry collection, Seventh Street Sad. She is currently very active in the art, music, and poetry scenes surrounding Phoenix. She has two cats, Coraline and Arrietty, and they both look the same.
Noreen Ocampo is a Filipina American writer and student at Emory University. In the future, she aims to work in the intersection of storytelling and education, and her poetry appears or is forthcoming in Marías at Sampaguitas, 3 Moon Magazine, and Royal Rose, among others.
Hannah Cole Orsag is a writer, editor, and dramaturg currently residing in Toronto, Ontario. She deeply loves discussing narrative and storytelling in all forms. Her work has appeared in Lee Review, Sun & Sandstone and interview blog Speaking of Marvels. Find her on Twitter @hannahorsag and at https://leavesoflorien.weebly.com.
Abby Parcell is a nonprofit professional working to improve economic mobility in the South. Her work has been recently published in Exponent II. I live in Chapel Hill, NC.
Maria S. Picone has an MFA from Goddard College. As a Korean adoptee in an Italian American family and a New Englander, her obsessions with noodles, seafood, and the ocean are hardly her fault. Her poetry and creative nonfiction appear in talking about strawberries all of the time, Mineral Lit Mag, Ariel Chart, and the Able Muse. Her Twitter is @mspicone, and her website is mariaspicone.com.
Jonathan Pizarro is a Queer Gibraltarian writer exiled in London. He is interested in language and borders, the ruins of colonialism, the memory of home, and monsters. He tweets @JSPZRO.
Jared Povanda is an internationally published writer and freelance editor from upstate New York. His work has been published by CHEAP POP, Pidgeonholes, Bending Genres, Ellipsis Zine, and Hobart, among others. Find him online @JaredPovanda and jaredpovandawriting.wordpress.com
Ivy Aloa Robb is an emerging artist and poet living in northern Minnesota. Her work can be found in Lindenwood Review, VampCat Journal, and is forthcoming in Mineral Lit Mag. When she is not writing you can find her bird watching or brewing tea.
D.T. Robbins has stories in Hobart, Maudlin House, X-R-A-Y, Bending Genres, and others. He’s founding editor of Rejection Letters.
Gretchen Rockwell is a queer poet currently living in Pennsylvania. Xe is the author of the forthcoming microchapbooks Love Songs for Godzilla (Kissing Dynamite) and Thanatology (Ghost City Press); xer work has appeared in Glass: A Journal of Poetry, Poet Lore, FOLIO, Okay Donkey, Moonchild Magazine, and elsewhere. Find xer at http://www.gretchenrockwell.com or on Twitter at @daft_rockwell.
Dettra Rose is a Londoner living in NSW Australia. She writes flash fiction, non-fiction articles and tiny poems. Her flash pieces have won and been commended/shortlisted/longlisted in many esteemed competitions. Currently, she’s in the final stages of finishing her first novel. Please read more @ Dettrarose.com Twitter – @dettrarose Facebook – @dettrarose
Damian Rucci is a writer and poet from New Jersey whose work has appeared in Cultural Weekly, Beatdom, Public House, and coffee shops and basements across the country. He is the author of five books of poetry, founder of the Poetry in the Port reading series, and a two time poet in residence at Osage Arts Community in Belle, Missouri. Damian is the unofficial poet laureate of 711.
Ashley Sapp resides in Columbia, South Carolina, with her husband and furbabies. She earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in English from the University of South Carolina in 2010 and has written for various publications. Her work has previously appeared in Indie Chick, Tipsy Lit, and the Common Ground Review. She is a bibliophile who enjoys traveling, tattoos, and a good pun or two (or three). Ashley has written two poetry collections: Wild Becomes You and Silence Is A Ballad.
Karen Schauber is a Flash Fiction writer obsessed with the form. Her work appears in 45 international literary magazines and anthologies, including Brilliant Flash Fiction, Bending Genres, Ekphrastic Review, Fiction Southeast, and New Flash Fiction Review. ‘The Group of Seven Reimagined: Contemporary Stories Inspired by Historic Canadian Paintings’ (Heritage House, 2019), celebrating the Canadian modernist landscape painters, is her first editorial/curatorial flash fiction anthology. Schauber runs ‘Vancouver Flash Fiction’, a flash fiction Resource Hub and Critique Circle, and in her spare time, is a seasoned Family Therapist. A native of Montreal, she has called Vancouver home for the past three decades.
Claire Scott is an award winning poet who has received multiple Pushcart Prize nominations. Her work has been accepted by the Atlanta Review, Bellevue Literary Review, New Ohio Review, Enizagam and Healing Muse among others. Claire is the author of Waiting to be Called and Until I Couldn’t. She is the co-author of Unfolding in Light: A Sisters’ Journey in Photography and Poetry.
Finola Scott is published widely in the UK & Eire. Her poems are found on posters, postcards and tapestries as well as in magazines and anthologies including New Writing Scotland, The Fenland Reed and Lighthouse. Current Makar of the Federation of Writers, her pamphlet Much left Unsaid is published by Red Squirrel Press.
L Scully (they/them) is a queer writer and double Capricorn currently based in Boston. They are the co-founder and prose editor at Stone of Madness Press. Find them in the ether @LRScully.
Daniel Shooter’s short fiction has been published in Spadina Literary Review (Canada), and in forthcoming issues of Dream Catcher (UK), Reality Break (USA), and The Fiction Pool (UK). Daniel has been writing seriously for about three years and divides his time between teaching Music part-time at a local school and being a stay-at-home dad.
Remi Skytterstad is from Norway, where he studies educational science. He lives with his daughter who attends kindergarten. He has poetry and fiction published in both Norwegian and English. You can find him on twitter @Skytterstad
Jade Song is a writer and art director. She grew up in Pittsburgh and now resides in Brooklyn. Her work has appeared in Waxwing. Find her at jadessong.com/.
EC Sorenson is a media producer and writer. Her recent work has appeared in Litro Magazine, Queen Mob’s Teahouse, Tiny Molecules, X-R-A-Y Lit Mag, Tiny Essays and Monkey Bicycle. She has previously been shortlisted for a Writers Digest Short Story award and longlisted for the Fish International Short Story Prize. She lives in Australia. Find her on Twitter at @ecwsorenson
Anna Spence is an academic by day and a writer by compulsion. Her work appears in Ellipsis Zine and Elephants Never. You can find her on Twitter @MSSalieri
Lannie Stabile is a finalist for the 2019/2020 Glass Chapbook Series and semifinalist for the Button Poetry 2018 Chapbook Contest – has her first published collection, Little Masticated Darlings, now out with Wild Pressed Books. Her works are published in Glass Poetry, Pidgeonholes, Okay Donkey, and more. She is a Pushcart nominee.
Gerry Stewart is a poet, creative writing tutor and editor based in Finland. Her poetry collection Post-Holiday Blues was published by Flambard Press, UK. In 2019 she won the ‘Selected or Neglected Collection Competition’ with Hedgehog Poetry Press for her collection Totems. Her writing blog can be found at http://thistlewren.blogspot.fi/ and @grimalkingerry on Twitter.
A journalist for 20 years, Hannah Storm’s flash fiction, poetry and creative nonfiction is often inspired by her experiences travelling the world for work. This year she won the ‘I Must Be Off!’ travel writing prize, placed second in the Bath Flash Fiction Award and was highly commended in the TSS flash prize. She lives in the UK with her family and works as a media consultant and director of a journalism charity.
Neal Suit is a recovering lawyer. He writes fiction and is completing his first novel. He has short stories published or forthcoming in Mystery Weekly, Boston Literary Magazine, and Fiction Kitchen. He lives in Dallas, Texas with his family and periodic writer’s block.
Nardine Taleb is an Egyptian-American writer and speech-language pathologist based in Cleveland. She graduated from Case Western Reserve University where she received The Finley Foster/Emily M Hills Poetry Award for best poem or group of poems (2015), and the Edith Garber Krotinger Prize for best short story (2017) from the Department of English. She was a finalist in Gordon Square Review‘s prose contest last fall and a runner-up for their poetry contest this spring. She is a Brooklyn Poets Fellowship finalist for the summer of 2020.
Kristin Tenor finds inspiration in life’s quiet details and believes in their power to illuminate the extraordinary. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in both print and online journals, including The Midwest Review, Spelk Fiction, Bending Genres, Milk Candy Review, Spry Literary Journal, Anti-Heroin Chic, River Teeth-Beautiful Things, among others. She also volunteers as a reader at CRAFT Literary. Learn more at www.kristintenor.com or follow her on Twitter @KristinTenor.
Nishtha Tripathi is a law student who writes to seek refuge from the rigours of law. Her works have featured in the Nightingale and Sparrow Magazine, the Teen Belle Magazine, the Versfication Zine, among others. When not writing she can be found dilly dallying her way through college assignments.
Ryleigh Wann is an MFA poetry candidate at UNC Wilmington. A previous reader for Chautauqua literary journal, she has learned a lot about the publishing world and is eager to try and finally publish her own work. When she’s not writing poetry or reading, she can be found playing with her dumbo rats, bike riding, or exploring the nearby swamps.
Lisa Lerma Weber lives in San Diego, CA. Her words and photography have appeared online and in print. She is a poetry contributor for Versification. Follow her on Twitter @LisaLermaWeber
Rodd Whelpley manages an electric efficiency program for 32 cities across Illinois and lives near Springfield. His poems have appeared in Tinderbox Poetry Journal, The Shore, 2River View, Star 82 Review, Kissing Dynamite, Barren, Shot Glass Journal, The Naugatuck River Review, The Chagrin River Review and other journals. Catch as Kitsch Can, his first chapbook, was published in 2018. Find him at www.RoddWhelpley.com.
Kevin Richard White‘s fiction appears in Grub Street, The Hunger, Lunch Ticket, The Molotov Cocktail, The Helix, Hypertext, decomP and Ghost Parachute among others. He is a Flash Fiction Contributing Editor for Barren Magazine and also reads fiction for Quarterly West and The Common. He lives in Philadelphia.
Skye Wilson is a glittery, rugby-playing feminist from Scotland. She is working towards an MSc in Creative Writing at Edinburgh University, and is most recently published in Spoken Word Scratch Night Zine in Paris, and forthcoming in From Arthur’s Seat. She is extremely bisexual. Skye loves ugly shirts, and poems about hope, fear, and belonging. Her pronouns are she/her.
Francine Witte is the author of four poetry chapbooks and two full-length collections, Café Crazy and The Theory of Flesh from Kelsay Books. Her flash fiction has appeared in numerous journals and anthologized in the most recent New Micro (W.W. Norton) Her novella-in-flash, The Way of the Wind has just been published by Ad Hoc Fiction, and her full-length collection of flash fiction, Dressed All Wrong for This was recently published by Blue Light Press. She lives in New York City.
Jenny Wong is a writer, traveler, and occasional business analyst. She resides in the foothills of Alberta, Canada and is currently attempting to create a poetry collection about locations and regularly visit her local boxing studio. Recent publications include Atlas & Alice, Whale Road Review, Lost Balloon, Ellipsis Zine and FlashFlood 2020.
Taylor Wyna is a Magic City writer whose work has been featured in Aura Literary Arts Review and The Birmingham News. She is the Founder and EIC of Camellias, a Southern Regional magazine dedicated to the modern Southern woman. Say ‘hi’ on Twitter @TayyWyna
Sally Zakariya’s poetry has appeared in some 75 print and online journals and been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. Her most recent publication is Muslim Wife (Blue Lyra Press, 2019). She is also the author of The Unknowable Mystery of Other People, Personal Astronomy, When You Escape, Insectomania, and Arithmetic and other verses, as well as the editor of a poetry anthology, Joys of the Table. Zakariya blogs at www.butdoesitrhyme.com.
Madison Zehmer is a 22-year-old emerging poet and wannabe historian from North Carolina, with work in Déraciné, Gone Lawn, Drunk Monkeys, LandLocked, and more. She is the editor in chief of Mineral Lit Mag, and her first chapbook, Unhaunting, will be released by Kelsay Books in 2021.
Emerge Literary Journal 